In recent days and weeks much has been written about the human-rights situation in Azerbaijan, among others by The Economist and by the European Stability Initiative, a Berlin-based non-governmental organisation. The focus of attention is Azerbaijan’s six-month chairmanship of the Council of Europe, which it took over, following alphabetical order, from Austria this month. The question that preoccupies many commentators is how a country which is known in Western capitals for stifling journalists and locking up opposition activists can chair an organisation whose very aim it is to defend human rights, democracy and the rule of law.

At the same time, some seem to suggest the Council of Europe is somehow blind to the country’s well-documented rights violations, a point of view I emphatically reject.

Azerbaijan was accepted into the Council of Europe by its member states in 2001, essentially in the expectation that its membership, together with Armenia, would contribute to a peaceful resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Unfortunately, this hope has not been fulfilled.

The Council of Europe has 47 member states including all 28 members of the European Union. All states are represented by their ambassadors in the Committee of Ministers. No state, nor the EU, which plays an active role in the organisation, has publicly questioned Azerbaijan’s chairmanship, let alone its membership of the Council of Europe. Neither has the Parliamentary Assembly, the elected body of national deputies from all Council of Europe member states. As things stand, Europe’s political leaders want us to offer our assistance to help bring about change in Azerbaijan, not to eject it from the organisation.

But like the European Commission, the United States and many NGOs, the Council of Europe has not held back with warnings over the human-rights situation in Azerbaijan.

Only three weeks ago, the Council of Europe’s human-rights commissioner, Nils Muižnieks, issued an update to his previous report of 2013 on the freedom of assembly and expression in the country, in which he expresses his serious concern about the harassment and arrests of journalists. Among several cases against Azerbaijan before the European Court of Human Rights, a body created by the Council of Europe, is one regarding the arrest and pre-trial detention of the civil-rights activist Ilgar Mammadov. Mammadov is also the director of the Baku School of Political Studies, operating under the auspices of the Council of Europe. A ruling in this case is expected today (22 May).

Last year, a delegation of Council of Europe ambassadors from Germany, France, Switzerland, Poland, Romania and Ukraine visited Baku and concluded that “substantial progress remains to be accomplished by Azerbaijan” in meeting Council of Europe standards. A resolution of the Parliamentary Assembly similarly voiced major concern over alleged cases of torture and ill-treatment of prisoners.

It is against this background and the many detailed reports by NGOs that I am in Baku this week to meet President Ilham Aliev and senior members of government. I will address human-rights violations and request the release of Mammadov. I will meet members of civil society and the opposition. I will also launch a Council of Europe action plan adopted by our member states to support projects designed to promote freedom of expression and independence of the judiciary.

Two years after the Eurovision Song Contest in Baku, Azerbaijan will be in the spotlight again during the next six months. I sincerely hope the government and its authorities will use this opportunity to demonstrate their will to improve the country’s human-rights record. Not for the sake of the Council of Europe, but for the sake of the people of Azerbaijan.